Elle (Spanish pronoun)

Elle (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈeʎe], plural: elles [ˈeʎes]) is a personal pronoun[1][2] in Spanish intended as an alternative to the third-person gender-specific pronouns él ("he") and ella ("she"). It is supposed to be used when the gender of a person is not known or when it is not desirable to specify the person as either "he" or "she". It is not endorsed by any Spanish-language academy or institution. It is an equivalent of the singular they pronoun when used for gendering purposes.

On 27 October 2020, the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) briefly incorporated the pronoun into its Word Observatory, a new section of their website relaunched on 23 October 2020, with the following definition:[3]

The pronoun elle is a resource created and promoted in certain areas to refer to those who may not feel identified with either of the two traditional genders. Its use is not widespread or established.
The use of elle as the name of the digraph ll is noted in the DLE.[3]

On 30 October 2020, four days after its inclusion, the RAE decided to remove the word from its portal due to the confusion generated by its presence, and declared: "When the functioning and mission of this section is widely disseminated, it will be reassessed".[2]

History

Initially, the characters @ or x were used on social networks, blogs and other websites to express the neutral gender in Spanish, but the result was unsatisfactory as they could not be pronounced. For that reason, and although both options are still used, consensus by promoters of a Spanish gender-neutral language was reached to use e as the ending for the neutral grammatical gender and elle as the neutral pronoun. The first person to propose it was the British blogger Sophia Gubb[4] and, because of its ease, this is now the most widespread option used by supporters of these ideas. For this reason, several campaigns have been launched in order to get the pronoun included in the RAE.[5] In December 2021,[6] the RAE included the word elle in its dictionary, however not as a pronoun but defined as a digraph/sound of ll.[7]

See also
Look up elle in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

References
  1. Venkatraman, Sakshi (14 October 2020). "A gender neutral Spanish pronoun? For some, 'elle' is the word". NBCNews.com. Retrieved 30 November 2020.
  2. "La Real Academia Española retiró la palabra "elle" de su Observatorio para evitar "confusiones"". Clarín (in Spanish). Buenos Aires. 1 November 2020. Retrieved 1 November 2020.
  3. "El, ella y "elle": el pronombre que la Real Academia estudia incorporar al idioma". Clarín (in Spanish). Buenos Aires. 28 October 2020. Retrieved 1 November 2020.
  4. "Construyendo Un Género Neutro En Español - Para Una Lengua Feminista, Igualitaria E Inclusiva" (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 22 December 2015. Retrieved 22 December 2015.
  5. "No, #ElleEnLaRAE no va por nosotros". ELLE (in Spanish). 27 August 2015. Retrieved 16 December 2015.
  6. Morales, Manuel (16 December 2021). "Bitcóin, cachopo, criptomoneda, gentrificación, geolocalización, poliamor, transgénero y quinoa, nuevas palabras en el diccionario de la RAE". El País (in Spanish). Retrieved 20 March 2022.
  7. ASALE, RAE-; RAE. "elle | Diccionario de la lengua española". «Diccionario de la lengua española» - Edición del Tricentenario (in Spanish). Retrieved 20 March 2022.
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